Blood and Broken Glass
by Red River
Summary: "If I didn't know you, I would want to hunt you." Four months after Dean is raised from Perdition, the Winchesters break, and Sam finds himself bleeding out alone on the floor of an old house, pondering the demon in his veins and wishing for angels. Castiel is left to pick up the pieces. Sam/Cas centric, friendship or pre-slash. Mild AU; part of The Other Guardian 'verse.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

This story follows "A Change in the Weather," but it's not necessary to read that story first.

Special Note: One challenge of adding a "gap year" between Dean being raised from Hell and most of the events of Season 4 was getting in a few important canon events in a new way. This story surrounds/follows Dean finding out about Sam exorcising demons with his mind while he was in Hell, but since in this 'verse it isn't Castiel but Uriel who tells Dean what Sam was doing with Ruby, we needed a different story to explore that. This story is much darker than the last couple, with equal focus on Sam and Dean and Sam and Castiel.

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**Blood and Broken Glass  
**

The March night was colder than Sam had expected. He could feel the chill of it even through his heavy brown coat, and his teeth ached as he sucked in a breath and jogged up the rotting steps of the old farmhouse, the soft wind hissing in his ears. He struggled to turn the tarnished brass knob with just two fingers, and then nudged the door open with his knee, the low creak echoing out into the dark, empty fields at his back. Dust swirled up into the air as the bottom of the door caught on a tattered piece of cloth, leaving a long swath of clean wood on the otherwise grimy floor.

The abandoned farmhouse was on the far edges of a small town, smaller now that the only major factory had gone out of business. It was so small that the rumors of bodies turning up in vacant houses had only been a blip in the newspaper. On the drive into town, Sam had peered up at the hulking silhouettes of dark warehouses and silos and then over at his brother as they drove past the glowing sign of the first motel, and the second, and the third. They hadn't stopped to get a room yet when Dean dropped him off on the outskirts and headed for the other side of town, the winking brake lights his only goodbye. Sam tried not to wonder if his brother would pick him up when they were done or if he'd be walking back.

His cell phone sagged against his jacket's breast pocket as he ducked the low doorframe and stepped inside, the entryway glittering with broken bottles and cigarette butts and other footprints in the dust, though they looked old. He usually kept his cell phone in his pants pocket, or the deep pocket of his coat, jammed in among fast-food napkins and hotel pens and loose change and all the other meaningless, everyday things. But now he was on edge, worried about missing a call.

It was stupid, because the ringer was up all the way and he'd turned the vibrate on, too, so that he would probably give himself a coronary if it _did_ ring and the first few bars of "Bad to the Bone" shattered the silence of the house. And he wasn't supposed to be thinking about his phone at all—he was supposed to be thinking about the fistful of salt in one hand, and the tire iron in the other, and the ghost that was his best guess for what had been hanging slashed bodies out the windows of empty houses. They were lucky to even have a guess, with how little research they'd put into this. Dean had looked up directions to the town on his smartphone yesterday, and that was basically it. Sam's hand fidgeted as he fought down the urge to pull out the phone again. The route map was the closest he had to a message, and his missed call list hadn't changed in two days.

There was only ever one name on that list—_Dean, 2:25_; _Dean, 6:47_; _Dean, 11:17_. It seemed like they couldn't be apart for an hour without him missing a call from his brother. It was the technological equivalent of Dean leaving the bathroom door open while he showered.

Two days ago, the calls had stopped. A lot of things seemed to have stopped two days ago. Sam felt like part of him was still frozen in that moment, staring into fuming green eyes.

_Do you even know how far off the reservation you are? How far from normal? From human?_ Sam moved into the kitchen and used his toe to nudge a broken stool, the only stick of furniture left in the ransacked house. It wasn't fair, because he hadn't done anything, not since the day Dean crawled out of Hell and threw his arms around Sam again—hadn't done anything at all except try to pretend it had never happened, that the person he'd stared back at in the mirror for four months had never existed, or at least to bury him six feet down. But Dean had found out anyway, and then he'd been pissed, just as Sam had known he'd be—just as everyone was. A sheet of clear plastic nailed over the insulation on the wall flapped and crackled as he passed, like angry wings.

_If it's so terrific, why did an angel tell me to stop you?_ Sam halted at the edge of the ragged linoleum, steadying himself against the counter as he felt the shiver go through him again—the icy fist that had clenched around his lungs for one moment as he couldn't stop himself from wondering whether it was blue eyes and soft, warm hands that had condemned him to his brother's wrath, before Dean was speaking again. _The angels were watching you, Sam. Uriel was watching you_—and somehow Sam could imagine that, could imagine Uriel standing over him as he retched into the filthy trash can of a filthier motel, as a beer bottle smashed at his feet, the last of the cheap alcohol still rancid on his tongue, as he dug his fingers into a bare mattress and prayed for something, anything, to make it go away. He could imagine Uriel watching him suffer. He wondered where Castiel had been.

Saving his brother, maybe.

The lies were his own, and that meant the fallout was, too. Nothing he'd said seemed to matter to Dean—and maybe that was because even though he'd apologized, Dean could tell that deep down inside he wasn't really sorry, though he wanted to be, very badly. Sam wasn't sure why wrong and right always seemed twisted around in his head and could only imagine that it was the poison inside him, rotting him from the inside out. And then Dean had found the clip about the corpses in the newspaper, and the next two days had been nothing but driving, the odometer pushing eighty and Dean's knuckles turning white around the steering wheel, and Sam wondering what his brother really wanted to crush.

_If I didn't know you, I would want to hunt you._

A creaking sound somewhere deeper in the house jerked Sam back from his thoughts, and he tightened his fist around the tire iron, admonishing himself to focus. He hadn't seen any sign of the ghost yet, or found any cold spots, and there was no electricity to be on the fritz, but that didn't mean he should let his guard down. He stepped out of the kitchen into what might once have been a living room, a wide, empty space with walls of bare two-by-fours and carpet nails sticking up from the floor, gleaming in the light from two large windows. They were both broken now.

There was something huddled into the corner by the windows, and Sam's stomach turned as he recognized the sickly curl of emaciated feet and the twisted heap that only corpses became. He crossed the room and prodded the body through the worn blanket, and then reluctantly took hold of one corner, pulling back the moth-eaten fabric to expose the pallid face.

Wild black eyes snapped open. Sam only had a glimpse of blown pupils and sagging cheeks before the figure was surging up at him, bonelike fingers tearing into his arm as a gurgling shriek bubbled up from his shredded lips. The tire iron slipped from Sam's fingers, hitting the floor with a clang, and his other hand came up instinctively, flinging the handful of salt at the ghost. Except it wasn't a ghost, and Sam should have known that—because ghosts never slept on matted beds of blankets, because the bloodshot eyes staring into his were frantic with a different kind of madness, not the grief and malice of a spirit, but a person lost somewhere in their own mind, either to drugs or the chemicals of a damaged brain—and mostly, because in all the hunts Sam had ever been on, it was always the ghosts surprising the hunters, not the other way around.

The tweaker reared his head back, choking and screaming as the salt flew into his mouth and eyes, and Sam had one crazy, disoriented moment of wondering when his life had gotten so screwed up, of thinking what an insane story this would make when he told it to Dean, if Dean ever talked to him again, if Dean ever found it in himself to hit speed dial one and change the call log on Sam's phone, 11:17 no longer the moment the world ended—and realized too late that he shouldn't have been thinking about the phone, because the tweaker had a knife clenched in his contorted fingers, a long steak knife with rust gnawing at its serrated edge. The man wheezed as he heaved toward Sam, and the hunter stumbled backward, deflecting the blade away from his heart.

It should have been such a simple thing—he was so much taller, so much stronger than a skeletal tweaker shaking around a knife he wielded like a corkscrew—but whatever personal demons tormented him, the man gave a howl the second Sam's hand touched his skin, lurching unexpectedly downward. The knife drove deep into the flesh of his thigh, and for one moment Sam swore he could feel the icy metal against his bone—then everything was fire and Sam's elbow smashed into the window and the tweaker was screaming, staggering back, leaving the knife handle jutting out of Sam's leg as he took off, vanishing into the dark. The windowpane shattered into a hundred jagged pieces on the floor, and Sam was one of them, sliding down against the wall as the front door banged closed, him and everything else in the house shaking with the impact.

Sam took a ragged breath, staring down at the quivering wooden handle embedded in his thigh, a red stain blooming around the rip in his jeans. The throbbing felt so far away he couldn't tell if it was pain or just his heartbeat pulsing in his ears. There was something so gruesome about the knife sticking out of his leg, pinning him to the stripped boards, and Sam knew better, so much better, meant to be reaching for his phone—but somehow his fingers wrapped around the handle instead, and he yanked the blade out, feeling the drag of serrated teeth carving through his flesh. He flung the knife away and it clattered on the floorboards, glinting red as it caught the moonlight through what remained of the gritty glass. Sam's head fell backward against the sill.

God, it was bad. The blood was flowing freely now, faster than he'd expected, darker than he'd expected, leaving him at the center of a widening stain. Sam felt a strange buzzing at the back of his skull, wondered in a distant way if he was bleeding out, because the most vital blood was always the darkest, almost black. Maybe especially in his case. He needed to stop the blood, or slow it down at least; make a compress, make his hands stop shaking. He needed to call Dean. His thumb left a bloody smear on the touchscreen.

The phone rang five times before Dean picked up.

"What, Sam?" his brother's voice barked through the speaker. His tone was sharp and annoyed and the picture in Sam's head was suddenly narrowed green eyes, a jaw that had stayed clenched for two hundred miles, hurt melting into anger that left Sam frozen, shivering against the wall. Or maybe that was the blood loss.

"Dean," Sam rasped. The name tasted cold and metallic, like the barrel of a gun, and he choked on it, realizing only as the drops hit his shirt that it was blood he tasted, that he had bitten through his lip. Somehow that blood was completely black, too.

"Sam!" Dean repeated. "Sam, are you still there?"

He sounded even angrier, if that were possible, but there was an edge of something else there, too, maybe panic, fear—Sam couldn't shake the feeling that six months ago he would have known. The phone was crackling against his ear, Dean's voice fuzzing in and out. Sam tried to answer but it was hard with his teeth chattering, hard to dredge up any words that didn't just come out broken. His brother was practically screaming now, and he could hear the sound of splintering wood, screeching tires, some kind of destruction echoing in his ragged voice as he demanded answers: _where was Sam, was he hurt, did he find the fucking ghost—talk to me, Sam!_ But Sam wasn't sure what to say.

The day they burned Dean's body in New Harmony, Indiana, Sam stood stiff inside the gruff circle of Bobby's arms and then got in the car and peeled out, not daring to look back in case he caught a glimpse of smoke in the rearview mirror. He drove until his eyes were blurring, until the glowing E glaring at him from the dashboard was just a haze of red light, a pinprick of hellfire. He vomited on the side of the road and Dean's ashes came up with his bile. He drove without direction but somehow he always ended up in the same place—a bare bunk in a motel so bad he and Dean wouldn't have touched it, alcohol and ache equally heavy in his stomach. Bobby's number filled up the missed call log.

Sometimes at night he lay in the half-dark of broken blinds with his phone hovering over his face and called Dean's cell phone, speed dial one, over and over, and listened to it ringing in the duffel bag at the foot of his bed. Took it out and stared at his own name until the screen went black. The first night he went looking for something stronger than liquor, ended up on his knees in an alley, throwing up into the spaces between battered red bricks until he was shaking, crying, his whole body hollow, like all he'd ever been were the streams of spit and bile sliding down his chin, like he was going to throw his heart up next.

There was a pistol in his pocket and the only thing that stopped Sam from putting it to his head was the knowledge that suicides went to Hell, and he couldn't bring himself to do it, to stare back at Dean through the flames and show him how worthless his sacrifice had been. He reached into his other pocket instead, dug out the phone, hit speed dial one until he could breathe again, his lungs shuddering open, closed in time to the ringing line. The next day he looked at his phone and felt his chest cave in at the notice on the screen, eight missed calls from Dean—but as he listened to the messages, heavy breathing, ugly sobs, someone choking on vomit and brick dust, he realized he had just grabbed the wrong phone the day before, had been calling himself over and over in a dark alley at the end of a very dark road, gravel and broken glass digging into his palms and the sound of black wings—yes, he thought he could remember them now—beating at his back, angels watching over him. Watching him surrender everything that he was to the gutter while the phone rang on and on with no one on the other side to answer it.

There was glass under him now, too—the reflection of the moon on the surface of a hundred fractured shards, bright as silver against the spread of black. Sam wondered suddenly if this was what he'd always been, blood and broken glass—if he was really that dark on the inside. He shuddered and his head snapped back against the windowsill, and the phone fell from his numb fingers, red droplets splattering across the glowing screen as it hit the floor—the black timer counting the minutes of the call he should have made two days ago, while he could still hear Dean, while there was some chance his brother would hear him. Before that alley caught up to him and the phone line was empty again, ringing for no one.

Sam's eyes wanted to slip closed, but he kept them open, fixed on the ragged hole the knife had torn through his jeans, the deep laceration underneath that cut right into the depths of him. He ground the heel of his palm into the wound, pressed down as hard as he could, the blood running hot over his fingers. The phone counter passed another minute, the little numbers ticking incessantly as Sam stared at his life slipping through his hands, every dark decision pouring out of him, every heartbeat one more pump of tainted blood leaving his veins. Maybe he'd been on the right track, in that alley all those months ago, vomiting onto the bricks—maybe the only way he'd ever be clean was to be hollow, a shriveled husk, everything that had made him wrong and twisted all his life leached, at last, from his bones. Maybe Heaven would still take him if he bled out right here on the floor, if he wasn't _the boy with the demon blood_ anymore.

_If I didn't know you, I would want to hunt you._

He would die, though—the thought was inside of Sam somewhere, and it made him press harder, try to hold onto his warped existence for a while longer, if only for the phone that was still on, still counting, still had somebody on the other end. For one moment the image of Castiel flashed through Sam's mind, but he couldn't hold onto it—couldn't picture soft hands and brilliant blue eyes when he was stained with deep, visceral black. Couldn't imagine an angel in this rotting house sick with demon blood. Couldn't see anything anymore except the numbers rolling over and over, counting out six minutes, nine…

Dean's voice was still screaming through the phone, and Sam thought maybe he heard something else, the distant sound of a door crashing in, glass shattering under heavy shoes. But his vision was fading, and he didn't think there was anything that could save him from the darkness anymore. Maybe there never had been. Then his eyes fell shut, and all he could hear was the rasp of his breaths and a ringing in his ears, someone missing his very last call.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

This story follows "A Change in the Weather," but it's not necessary to read that story first.

Special Note: One challenge of adding a "gap year" between Dean being raised from Hell and most of the events of Season 4 was getting in a few important canon events in a new way. This story surrounds/follows Dean finding out about Sam exorcising demons with his mind while he was in Hell, but since in this 'verse it isn't Castiel but Uriel who tells Dean what Sam was doing with Ruby, we needed a different story to explore that. This story is much darker than the last couple, with equal focus on Sam and Dean and Sam and Castiel.

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This wasn't happening. Not today. Too much shit had happened to them already, and this was _not fucking happening_.

The door of the old farmhouse was half open and rotted all the way through—there was no reason to kick it in, but Dean did it anyway, and watched the hinges rip out of the splintered frame and the slab of decaying wood smashed to the floor. He ducked inside and the smell of blood hit him like a sledgehammer. If he'd had the windows down, he probably could've caught it from the car.

This wasn't happening. Not to Sam. Not to him. At some point, there had to be a limit to how many times the world could fuck him over.

"Sam!" Adrenaline ripped the name out of his throat too loud. All he got back was silence—the worst kind of silence, because it wasn't the silence of an empty house or the silence of someone flunked out in a Jack Daniel's coma. It was the silence that always hit right before he found a body. A body, not a corpse—because wherever he was, Sam was still breathing. If he wasn't, Dean was going to dive straight back into Hell and kick his brother's ass all the way upstairs.

There was a voice in the back of Dean's head screaming that it shouldn't have gone down this way, that Sam never even should have been here, not alone—but he wasn't listening, because it didn't matter. All that mattered was finding Sam. He tore through the kitchen and the busted-up dining room and then stopped dead in the next doorway, an empty room of cracked boards and sheets of plastic nailed over the two-by-fours—and against the far wall, slumped under the broken windows, a form he recognized all too well, didn't have to see the face to know it was Sam because he had seen Sam like this once a year at least for more than two decades—and God, how fucked up was that: two dozen portraits of his brother dying, almost dead, rattling in his head like angry quarters as he stared at the scene that belonged in a slaughterhouse, a horror movie, blood spreading out beneath Sam like a shadow and the steak knife, the murder weapon—_shut up shut up shut your fucking mouth_—

Dean didn't realize he was running until one boot hit the knife and it spun into the wall, the clang barely registering over the pounding in his head.

In a second he was on his knees, straddling Sam's extended leg as eyes that were too used to this scoured his brother's body for the wound. Sam was out but his hands were still clamped over his left thigh, his fingers so thick with blood that Dean had to wrench them up from his matted jeans with a sound like Velcro ripping—and shit, it had to be the femoral artery, because that was just Winchester luck through and through. Why settle for a flesh wound when you could bleed out for the same price? Dean locked his fingers and pressed down as hard as he could over the wound, and Sam moaned, his eyelashes flickering like an epileptic as his head rolled back against the windowsill.

"Sam? Sammy? Hey—talk to me!" Dean lifted one hand and seized the back of his brother's neck, rough fingers tangling in Sam's hair as he forced their faces closer together. "Sam, what the fuck happened? What got you?" It hadn't been a ghost—that much he knew for sure. Ghosts' knives tended to disappear when they did.

Sam's eyes fell open just a crack, enough to catch a glimpse of glazed pupils and shot veins, and suddenly Dean was in a memory: preparing for a hunt, the smell of gun oil stifling in a small hotel room as his father dragged a small pocketknife down the line of his thigh, warning _protect this spot, you got that—sever the femoral artery and you're as good as dead_. The femoral artery was as bad as being stabbed through the heart—worse, maybe, because you were just as dead but you had to sit there and know it for twenty minutes. Dean didn't know how long it had been, but the blood seeping up through the knees of his jeans told him it was too late to get Sam to a hospital. All of his first-aid training was a jumble in his head—it was Sam who knew what to do for things like this, Sam who always kept a cool head in shitstorms like this. Sam who was blinking at him, far too slowly, like every time those long, girly lashes hit his cheeks might be the last time they moved.

"Hey, stay with me," Dean growled, gripping Sam's matted hair a little harder than he meant to. It was the blood—it was all over his hands now, just like Sam's, and his stained fingertips left Sam's long brown locks in sticky clumps. Sam was going to bitch like a prom queen when it came time to wash the blood out, and whatever complimentary soap they had at the hotel had no chance of being good enough—but Dean swore to God and the Devil and all the dickbag angels sent to crap on his life that he would buy every last bottle of shampoo he could find in this shithole of a town if he could just have that moment in return: Sam fuming, sticking his dripping head out of the bathroom to yell at him, twirling his girly hair around one girly finger, Sam hogging every towel as he tried to get his hair dry—anything, everything but this. Sam's eyes had focused on his finally, but they were glassy, shaking like the rest of him as he tried to work his ashen-blue lips.

"Dean..." Sam rasped, and Dean felt his heart clench as the name sent a trickle of blood down his chin. "Mm...m'sorry..."

And fuck no—that wasn't how it was going to go. Sam didn't get to pull that crap when he was standing at death's door. For two days, that was the only word Dean had wanted to hear from his brother, but he damn sure didn't want to hear it now. Dean stared down at his brother's blood-soaked body and felt a rage so hot his eyes went blind. He had not spent four months burning in Hell for this.

He and Sam were done playing by the rules.

"Cas! Castiel!" It was more a scream than a yell, but Dean didn't care what he sounded like right then as long as someone heard him. "Where the fuck are you? I need you—God, Sam needs you so bad right now, Cas! How much blood does he have to lose for you to get off your featherblown ass—"

Castiel had always landed with a rustle. Tonight it was a roar. A gust of wind burst through the room like a hurricane, shattering the last of the windows, and Dean jerked his head around to see the angel standing behind him, his blue eyes wild, his arrival whipping the plastic sheets at his back into a frenzy like whirling wings. Dean wondered if he'd broken the speed limit on the way down. For once his worthless guardian angel wasn't peering aimlessly around the room, taking it all in like he was window-shopping—he was staring straight at Sam, and he looked positively wired, the air around him crackling with electricity. Dean felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck.

For an instant, relief threatened to overwhelm him—but anger was easier, and he threw himself onto it like a pyre.

"Finally. What, did you take the fucking stairs?"

Castiel didn't throw him so much as a bitch glare. His eyes narrowed as they flickered between the cold sheen of sweat on Sam's skin, the ragged hole in his ripped jeans—and suddenly Dean got the sick feeling that Cas was calculating every drop of blood Sam had lost, every second left before his heart stopped beating. The angel strode forward and his steps made the house shake.

"Move," he ground out. Dean bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood.

"You're out of your fucking head. If I don't keep pressure—"

"Move," Castiel repeated—and this time all the glass shards rattled and popped against the floor, the static of the angel's true voice bleeding through reminding Dean of shattered mirrors coming down on him all those months ago, before Cas had been holding back.

Dean stared up at Castiel and realized again, maybe for the first time since he'd seen the shadows of wings on a warehouse wall, how psychotically fucked up it was that something like Cas existed, a thunderstorm in a bottle, an honest-to-fuck guardian angel who could fix anything—and suddenly Dean almost wished he hadn't called him, because maybe Cas could work miracles but he didn't know a thing about them, didn't know a thing about Sam, and Dean had always taken care of his brother no matter whose turn it was to burn. And maybe he didn't want to let go of Sam, because he had a feeling that if he made a space for Cas right now it might not be so easy to push the angel out of the way again, to go back to just him and Sam, the way it was supposed to be. But they were up shit creek without so much as a rake, and Sam's breath was just a shallow rattle in his chest. Dean clenched his fist into his brother's hair.

"All right. Just do your fucking thing already."

It was hard to tear his hands away. Even with an angel one step behind him, ready to take his place, everything in Dean screamed at him not to let up pressure on that wound. He wrenched his hands back all at once, like tearing a Band-Aid off a gaping sore. He hadn't left much of a space, but Castiel shouldered his way in all the same, kneeling before Sam and not even flinching as the blood soaked into his dry-clean-only slacks, and as he leaned back to give Cas a few more inches Dean wondered if the angel had even really cared whether he moved or not, whether Cas would've shoved him out of the way if he'd hesitated another half a second. One touch and the purple gash vanished from Sam's thigh, and Dean's heart jerked like a jumping jack as his brother's hazel eyes flickered open once more, his breaths speeding up for just a second with the rush.

"Cas...?" The name was just a croak, barely a whisper on Sam's chapped lips; Dean tried to reach out but Castiel beat him to it, his free hand cupping the slope of that pale cheek. Sam leaned into the touch like it was the only thing holding him up.

"You shouldn't speak," Castiel explained in a low voice. "You are in precarious condition."

Dean wasn't sure if it was the order that pissed him off, or just the way the angel wasn't even looking at him, like he'd assumed command of this battle cruiser and Dean might has well have slipped overboard. He bent forward until he could grab Sam's arm.

"Yeah, no shit, Cas. Probably because he's spent all night bleeding out on Elm Street. Here's a novel idea—how 'bout you flap those wings and beam us the fuck out of here?"

Castiel nodded and reached for his shoulder. The last thing Dean saw before that rotting, blood-soaked hellhole vanished in a rustle of invisible wings was Cas's hand sliding into the snarl of Sam's hair, right where his had been.

The motel room they crashed down in was dark and too cold, a patchwork of shadow and hard streetlight through the half-open curtains illuminating a room a few rungs up from their usual grunge-huts. Dean wondered if they were still even in the same vacant suckhole town.

Cas had done a piss-poor job landing them, and by _them_ Dean guessed he meant himself—his shins hit the edge of a wide bed at an angle like he'd been trying to stand through the corner of the mattress, and he almost pitched forward right onto Sam, laid out much more carefully on top of the light blue comforter. At the last second he jerked backward instead, taking a few unsteady steps across the shag carpet and then sitting down hard as his calves hit the edge of the next bed over. At least Cas had found them lodging for two, though Dean suspected that was a divine accident; he was pretty sure he was the last thing on the angel's mind. Castiel was still hovering over Sam, supporting his head as he stared down at that bone-white face—but staring wasn't what Sam needed right now. He almost threw his shoulder out of joint shoving Cas out of the way.

This was the part he knew what to do with. Taking care of Sam was second nature by now. Sam never could make anything easy, not even when he was one sliver shy of unconscious, moaning and shaking as Dean wrestled his gargantuan arms out of his filthy coat, fought him out of his enormous clown shoes and his ruined, ragged jeans that left a black smear of blood down the length of the bed. Castiel didn't help, but he didn't flap off either—Dean looked up from throwing the second comforter over his brother's legs to see the angel perched on the mattress next to Sam's head, running the pad of his thumb across the bruise on his jaw, the one Dean had put there two days ago, after a different angel stuck his nose into their business. Sam surged up from the bed and fisted his hands in Castiel's trench coat, incoherent as a crack addict, and as Cas pushed him back down, so carefully it was impossible to believe, for a second, that this was the same guy who shattered windows when he hit the ground, Dean's eyes locked on the two bloody handprints Sam had left behind, stark as paint against the tan fabric of the trench coat. Cas didn't look like such an immaculate angel anymore.

Neither of them said a word until Sam gave one last groan and slumped back into the pillows, his breathing shallow but finally steady again as the shivering dropped off. Dean straightened from clocking the weak pulse in his neck and barely stopped himself before raking red fingers through his hair.

"Bang-up job, Cas. He is exactly as pasty and half-dead as when I first called you down. So glad you could stop by." The words were rough, bitter, wasted because sarcasm always went right over Castiel's head. Cas glanced at him for maybe two seconds before his eyes dropped to Sam again.

"His life is no longer in jeopardy. However, he is still very weak, and will be for some time."

"Some time?" Dean cut in—and there was the anger again, always easier than fear, than doubt, than all those other emotions deeper than the blood burning under his skin. "Can I get an estimate at least? Two days? A week? A year? How long am I going to have an invalid for a copilot? You gotta give me something, Cas"—and he didn't mean for the last to come out quite as desperate as it did, but there it was: Sam was broken again and Dean didn't know how long he could handle it this time. Castiel threw him a sharp look.

"I don't…it's impossible to be certain," Cas told him, and Dean heard the hedge for what it was. The angel brushed his fingers across Sam's temple. "My grace has repaired his wounds, but he has lost a great deal of blood, and that his body can only replenish in its own time. There is nothing more I can do."

"Yeah, there just never is, is there?" Dean found himself saying. His hands were starting to itch, and he wanted to put them through something—a window or a wall or Castiel's impassive face, silent as a higher-up etched in stained glass. Sam's blood was under his fingernails, making his skin crawl, and Castiel was just staring at him, sitting on the edge of Sam's bed like he belonged there, like he'd come down just to take Dean apart with his eyes, judgment in a bloody trench coat. Dean clenched his fists. "You're supposed to be an angel."

Castiel's eyes narrowed. "I am an angel, Dean," he said, his voice dropping to a low rumble. "There are things even angels cannot do."

"Angels can't do jack shit," Dean snapped. Then he stalked into the bathroom and ripped the sink handle up until hot water spewed out, and thrust his hands right into the searing spray.

If he didn't get rid of Sam's blood right now, he was going to rip his fingernails off.

Behind him, he heard the creak of a floorboard, Castiel getting slowly to his feet. Those condemning eyes burning into the back of his neck. He tore the bar of soap out of its plastic, ground it into his fingernail grooves. Flinched when he heard that low, relentless voice.

"Dean. How did this happen?"

Dean slammed the water off with the heel of his palm. His hands were still wet, still red; he braced them on the counter and watched the moisture slick into the gaps between the white tiles, why not, Sam's blood staining this corner of the world, too. Lifted his eyes to the mirror and stared at Castiel standing there in the dark, his face turned toward Dean but one hand, still, wrapped around Sam's wrist, pale fingers around paler flesh—and what was that supposed to be? A shackle? A lifeline? Dug his fingertips into the grout and heard what Cas was really asking—because he wasn't asking _how did this happen_, he was asking _how did this happen to Sam_, _how did you let this happen to Sam_, and Dean was so damn tired of that question. Sometimes it felt like the only question anyone had ever asked him. And what about Sam? How did _Sam_ let these things happen?

Two days. Two days and two sharp cracks as his knuckles found Sam's jaw and then two hundred miles side by side in the car, and Sam hadn't said a word, not one fucking syllable until he was bleeding out, torn and broken on a dirty floor—and then it was _I'm sorry_. Of course it was. It was like Sam saved everything up inside his twisted head and then put it all into those two words. _Sorry_ hadn't been good enough two days ago, and he wasn't sure it was enough now, not when all of Heaven and Hell had conspired to keep him in the dark about the one thing he needed to know above all else: what kind of world he was coming back to when he clawed his way out of the pit. What kind of Sam.

"When were you going to tell me?" Dean asked. One glance in the mirror showed Castiel still standing motionless beside the bed. Dean almost laughed as he wiped a towel across his hands and then flung it to the floor, turning back to face the room. "No way. You don't get to play dumb—not about this. Not about Sam." That got a reaction, just a twitch, but it was enough to strike the match, transform Dean's anger from a slow burn into a flash fire. He took another step forward. "Uriel, Cas? I had to hear from _Uriel_ that my brother spent four months shacked up with a demon, pissing on everything it means to be a hunter and exorcising those black-eyed sons of bitches with his _mind_?"

Castiel's expression was pinched now, his eyes steady as he met Dean's gaze. "He had already ceased his activities by the time I revealed myself to you. How he spent his time in your absence did not seem relevant." He paused, scrutinizing Dean's face for a moment before adding, "As I have not told him of the actions you took in Hell. Or are those relevant as well?"

The blood was boiling in his head. Dean crossed the last stretch of carpet and clenched his fists into Castiel's collar so hard his knuckles went white. "Fuck you," he hissed into the angel's face. "You don't talk about that—you don't ever talk about that. Not to me. _Never_ to Sam." He wrenched forward with all his might, trying to shake Castiel, like he'd shaken Sam—but Cas was immovable, and suddenly Dean couldn't take one more second of this. He jerked his hands back and shouldered past Cas toward the door. "You know what? I can't do this right now. You've left me a pile of shit to do. How far away is the Impala?"

Castiel glanced out the window, calculating. "Seven miles."

Dean threw the door open hard enough to hit the wall. "Fuck you and the breeze you blew in on." Sam needed clean clothes, and medicine, and a V-8 and a whole box of Twinkies, and Dean needed a shower so bad he could taste the steam—but he wasn't going to get that, couldn't rent this room or hit up a gas station or call a goddamn taxi looking like he'd just gutted someone with a Bowie knife. Fucking angels and the things they didn't understand.

He almost walked out without looking back at Sam—but the instinct was too strong, and in the end he glanced back over his shoulder, tracing the shape of his brother's crumpled body under the comforter. He watched Sam's lips part for breath before stepping out into the cold.

"Just keep him alive, okay? You can at least do that, right?" The door snapped shut so fast he almost caught his sleeve in it.

For a second Dean stood outside the motel room, breathing heavily, staring up at the streetlamps that lit the half-empty parking lot—then he shoved his hands down in his pockets and started walking, the asphalt crackling under his boots. His chest felt tight under his jacket, too many emotions banging on the inside of his ribs like a xylophone. There was relief in there somewhere, because Sam was alive and he was alive and that meant this wasn't over, they'd made it through one more—but Dean wasn't ready to be relieved yet. He just wanted to be angry for a little while longer.

Ten feet out, Dean stepped under a streetlamp and realized, suddenly, as the dull sheen of light raced up his arms, that he was still wearing his leather jacket, musky like the Impala and stained with flecks of Sam's blood, new or old he couldn't tell. He almost turned back, because whenever he had to leave Sam while he was down he always left the coat, too, so that Sam would know he'd just stepped out for a minute, was probably already on his way back. But somehow he couldn't do it, couldn't set foot in that room again so soon. He would find his way back to the motel eventually, because this was where Sam was and no matter how many times he walked away he always came back to Sam, in the end—but the end was a ways off, and seven miles wasn't getting any shorter. Dean sank deeper into the coat and trudged on.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

A/N: Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out; I took a vacation that was ill-timed. Hopefully the rest of the story will be able to come out without anymore delays.

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Castiel had blood on his hands.

It was lighter than he would have expected—not the color, staining the pale skin of his vessel red and flaking black, but the weight of it, or weightlessness, strangely insubstantial for the only thing that kept a human heart beating. He had been a soldier since the stars were born, had meted out God's judgment against man since the oldest cities were built stone by stone, but he had never had blood on his hands before. The justice of angels did not require getting his hands dirty.

Castiel found he disliked the sensation. But perhaps that had everything to do with whose blood it was.

In the hours since Dean's departure, Sam had scarcely moved. His eyelashes trembled against his cheeks, and there was a persistent shiver in his limbs, just enough to chase the beads of cold sweat on his brow down into the dark tangle of his hair, but otherwise he lay still, his chest barely rising with each shallow breath. Castiel was equally silent where he sat on the edge of the bed, listening to Sam's heart beating in the darkness. It was softer than he had ever heard it, just a shadow of a sound, each beat low and frantic under his sallow skin. Twice the angel's hand had strayed out of his lap to hover in the air above that quivering muscle, but each time he pulled it carefully back before touching him. Sam's rest was precarious enough without his interference.

Headlights broke through the thin gap in the curtains, burning a white stripe down the motel room wall. Castiel raised his head but then dismissed them—the wrong color, the wrong kind of car. He was learning to distinguish between such infinitely small things.

The light disturbed Sam enough to turn his face toward the window, and a few uncertain lines creased his forehead; Castiel braced one hand against the mattress and leaned out over him, his eyes fixed on the young man's bloodless face.

It was a strange impulse, this urge to lean toward Sam. He had felt it, too, in the moment of his descent, as the wind of his wings swept the scent of dust and blood into his nostrils and he first caught sight of Sam, splintered and shivering under a broken window. It ignited an anxiousness in him, an urgency, that he didn't understand. Without thought he had known how dire Sam's wound was, how many seconds he had left—knew that he had enough time to save him. The knowledge hadn't stopped him from pulling Sam to him as his wings flared and he took flight once more. For an angel, touch was arbitrary: his hold on Sam was no more secure with their bodies pressed close than if all that connected them was the tip of one finger. For just an instant, that hadn't felt like enough.

From another room came the sound of a door slamming. Sam gave a soft groan and rolled over, in the direction of the noise, and Castiel found himself wondering if these were things Sam associated with Dean: slamming doors, headlights, the tread of heavy boots retreating over pitted asphalt. In the muted light, the bruises on the underside of Sam's jaw were an unsettling gray, and without intention Castiel found he was reaching out to trace their shape, the imprint of knuckles he recognized too easily. He had seen them clenched barely two hours before as Dean gave himself over to rage, to some illusion of betrayal. Castiel clenched his jaw.

Dean's anger did not impress the angel, but it did unsettle him, because he had seen the same sheen of careless violence in those green eyes once before, and then Dean had gripped a flail in one hand, watching Castiel descend toward him with a sneer on his lips like he hadn't decided whether he wanted to be saved. He wondered if that spark of hellfire had burned in Dean's eyes again as he raised his hand to Sam, delivered condemnation with a vehemence that was surprising, considering the darkness Dean himself had succumbed to among the fires of the damned. Strange that he would think his hands clean enough to deal out retribution.

Castiel had not meant to make contact with Sam's skin. The chill against his fingertips and a sudden, deeper breath told him the damage was done.

"Dean?"

Castiel withdrew his hand and straightened, watching as Sam fought his way to consciousness. His heart was beating faster now, as fast as his eyelashes faltering against his cheeks, and in the dim light through the slit curtain the angel could see that his eyes were glazed, bewildered, the fear of remembered pain foremost in his mind. For a long moment those eyes refused to focus, fighting to morph Castiel's features into another face—then Sam took a sharp breath and jerked his head up from the pillows, his lungs shuddering in his chest.

"Cas? Where…where's Dean?"

His voice was raw and parched, the syllables bleeding together, but Castiel had no trouble understanding him. He wondered if it was always Sam's first question. Ihe image of Dean's back framed against the doorway came to his mind, the light from the streetlamps throwing his face into shadow. The angel pressed his lips together.

"He has gone to retrieve his car," he replied, his voice low. "You should not be awake, Sam. You need rest."

But Sam was only growing more agitated, his heartbeat erratic as he struggled against the blankets, fought to push himself up on his trembling elbows. His unfocused, bloodshot eyes tracked wildly around the room, searching for something Castiel could not identify—then he slumped back against the headboard, sweating and shaking, with a soft moan that made something clench in the angel's chest.

"Shit…" Sam swallowed, and that one tiny motion tensed every muscle in his throat, squeezed his eyes shut. "You… you have to go to him, Cas," he murmured. "Dean is… he needs you." Castiel felt his mouth twitch into a frown.

"You are the one in need."

Dean's hand had been steady on the doorknob; it was Sam who was trembling just with the effort of sitting up, Sam who was so pale Castiel could trace the labyrinth of bone and blue veins across the back of his hand. Sam's whose heart he could hear beating too hard, too fast for what little blood was left in his body. Sam who lacked the strength to hold his eyes open as he shook his head.

"No, you don't understand. He's hurting so bad right now," Sam whispered, and as his voice broke he pressed his temple hard against the headboard. "I hurt him so badly."

Castiel's hand was moving again, but this time he didn't try to stop it, only watched those inflamed hazel eyes blink open in surprise as his palm settled against Sam's jaw, covering a much darker mark. "That is difficult to believe," he said.

It was not his place to interfere in matters between the Winchesters. Neither was it his intention. But somehow, feeling Sam's jaw trembling against his hand—such a fragile thing, so easily bruised—it was impossible to imagine turning away, seeking out instead the heavy footfalls of a man who carried hellfire in his eyes, who always seemed so small when he was angry and who was always angry because he always felt wronged. He had no interest in following Dean out into the dark.

Sam was breathing hard and his eyelids were fluttering with the exertion of staying open, but Castiel tilted his chin up until he could meet that wavering gaze, the beat of Sam's fitful heart pounding in his ears. "I will not leave you," he said, and Sam inhaled sharply, like the words had wounded him.

"Cas…"

Castiel tipped his head, watching as the headlights of another car, still wrong, swept through the window and over Sam's ashen face, his lips slightly parted and the damp hair stuck to his temples, more than sweat matting the strands. He looked as if one wrong breath would break him. Castiel had always believed that the suffering of man was a foregone conclusion, a rite earned—but looking at Sam, now, shivering against the bed and heaving to catch his breath, he found it an abhorrent thought, condemning this tenuous soul to suffering. Castiel did not know what Sam needed; he was certain it was not him. But that did not stop the urge from sweeping over him once again: to pull Sam close, to envelop him in arms or grace, to cloister him from everything that was making him shake. His hand slid down Sam's neck to rest on the curve of his shoulder, feeling the ripple of startled, shuddering flesh as Sam responded to his touch.

"I will not leave you," he said again, staring into desperate hazel eyes.

Sam's eyes fell heavily closed. Castiel watched his ashen lips tremble and wondered if it was heartache or relief he saw on the young man's face. A long moment passed between them that way before Sam found the strength to meet his gaze again.

"You saved me, Cas."

The words were a murmur, little more than the shadow of sound. Castiel was not sure why they settled so heavily in his chest.

Slowly, agonizingly, as if the effort were almost too much, one of Sam's hands uncurled from the blankets and rose into the space between them, his fingers trembling like harp strings. Before he could complete the gesture, his gaze caught on the angel's coat, and he stopped, blinking too fast. His hands rose to hover in the air before his face, and Sam turned them over, then over again, struggling to comprehend something that Castiel could not guess. When he looked at the angel again, his expression was uncertain, something ragged and wounded lurking in his dark eyes.

"Did I do that?" he asked.

Castiel's eyes narrowed. Haltingly, he glanced down at himself, trying to determine what had upset him—then he realized it was the blood Sam was looking at, the two black handprints pressed into the fabric of his trench coat, the outline of the fingers blurred where he had clenched them into fists. In the dark, he had almost forgotten them. He glanced up again to find Sam with his hands outstretched, palms up, as if he were asking for benediction, or forgiveness. The anguish on his face seemed far too grave for such fleeting marks.

"It is nothing, Sam," Castiel said carefully. He could feel something in Sam beginning to quiver, the edge of panic or distress pushing his heart too fast. It was not what he needed.

Sam was nodding, but his eyes refused to track, and in the light of the streetlamps his clammy skin was white as porcelain, the blood caking his palms black like healing scabs. He pushed his hands down into the sheets and sat up from the headboard, struggling out from under Castiel's hand.

"Yeah. No," he mumbled, wiping a straggle of hair from his forehead with the inside of his wrist. "I just gotta, um…my hands are…" Then he lurched forward and ducked under Castiel's arm, and before the angel could grab him he had slipped from the bed, his legs crumpling and throwing him to his bare knees on the floor.

Castiel bent forward to catch him before he collapsed—and though he could have caught him without moving, with one hand, with the tip of one finger, somehow that would never be enough. He fell to his knees beside Sam instead; his body bent awkwardly into the position he had never before taken, but his focus was on Sam, one arm wrapping around the hunter's waist to hold him up and the other hand cradling the back of his head, lost in a tangle of matted hair. There was a second heartbeat throbbing in his ears now, and it took Castiel a moment to recognize it as his own. Sam was hyperventilating, his body shaking against Castiel's as he struggled with broken breaths, and for one endless moment all the angel could sense was those lungs constricting in the cage of his flesh, squeezing his frantic heart so hard it nearly stopped. Then his wings unfurled and Castiel reached for his grace—not for its power, the force that shattered windows, as he always had before, but for something else entirely: the peace of God's love, and the surrender of perfect faith. Castiel twined his fingers deep into Sam's hair and tipped his head back just a little, infinitely gentle with those delicate bones.

"Sam," he said, as their eyes came together. "Sam, be still."

All at once, he was; a hush fell across the dark room, and Sam stopped moving, stopped even breathing for a long moment as he stared at Castiel, his lips parted around an unfinished exhale. Castiel studied him in return, and could not fight the thought of how very human he was at that moment—shivering on his knees, washed in blood and sorrow, and yet the expression on his pale face was one of awe, the devotion of desperate faith. Castiel had spent six thousand years listening to prayer, but he had never seen reverence like the kind that shone on Sam's face. Sam tipped his head to the side, just far enough to rest against the curve of Castiel's wrist, and as a tear slid down into the crease between their skin he lifted his hands and clutched the fabric of the angel's coat, hiding the bloody handprints under equally bloody hands.

"I'm disgusting," Sam whispered, as his eyes flickered up to meet Castiel's. "I must be disgusting to you."

"You are human," Castiel told him, brushing his thumb through the disheveled strands of his hair. "You are God's most beloved creation. I could never find anything but beauty in you, Sam."

He was not certain, suddenly, as he said the last, whether he meant all of mankind or whether he was speaking only to Sam—but he put it out of his mind as Sam's eyes slipped closed and he breathed out, that wisp of air unexpectedly warm against the bare skin of his wrist. Castiel took him in, the whole of him, from bare toes curled against the carpet to his stained hands, the brand of red and black on his white skin. Then because he did not want the blood to be there, it was not, and at once everything was clean again, the crumpled blankets and the plains of Sam's palms and the slope of his trench coat, the fabric still wrinkled where it was anchor for two frightened hands. Sam's lips parted around his next inhale, as if he could feel the absence without opening his eyes.

For a tine he lost track of, Castiel remained where he was, listening to the in and out of Sam's shallow breaths, the rhythm of his frail heart humming in his chest. Then he bent and slipped one arm beneath Sam's knees, and lifted him effortlessly from the ground, marveling at the way his body folded to accommodate this, as if, like a child, he was meant to be carried. Sam's eyes flickered open as Castiel placed him carefully upon the bed once more, easing his head down into the pillows.

"Are you going to leave, Cas?"

His voice was little more than breath, so raw and tired that it was almost lost in the rustle of Castiel drawing the blanket over him. The angel resumed his perch on the edge of the mattress.

"No," he said.

Sam's eyelids were growing heavy, hesitating longer and longer against the ridges of his cheekbones, but all the same he rolled onto his side, seeking Castiel's gaze through the patchwork of light and shadow. "The blood," he murmured. "My blood…"

Castiel shook his head. "It is gone, Sam."

Sam turned his face into the pillow. "Not enough of it," he whispered.

Castiel frowned. Then he lifted his hand once more and brushed the soft skin of Sam's temples, delivering him to a peaceful, empty sleep.

Already there had been too much blood tonight—Sam did not need to see it in his dreams.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

This story follows "A Change in the Weather," but it's not necessary to read that story first.

Special Note: One challenge of adding a "gap year" between Dean being raised from Hell and most of the events of Season 4 was getting in a few important canon events in a new way. This story surrounds/follows Dean finding out about Sam exorcising demons with his mind while he was in Hell, but since in this 'verse it isn't Castiel but Uriel who tells Dean what Sam was doing with Ruby, we needed a different story to explore that. This story is much darker than the last couple, with equal focus on Sam and Dean and Sam and Castiel.

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Dean listed to the side, slamming his shoulder into a street lamp and trying to make the gravel under his feet stop moving. His brain sloshed painfully around in his skull, and his eyes kept sliding closed and then springing open as he squinted through the blackness. His hand was curled around something hard. It took Dean a moment to realize it was the neck of a beer bottle.

The hunter pushed himself off of the metal post, angling away from the dark, empty street. He hadn't gone half a fucking step before his feet tangled, though, and in a second he was going down, the glass bottle crashing out of his hand into the gutter as he sat down hard on the edge of the crumbling sidewalk. Shards of glass spread out across the circle of light under the streetlamp, reminding Dean all too clearly of the broken windows, and the bloody house. Suddenly he remembered why he had been carrying a bottle to begin with.

He let his head sink into his hands, the sight of the beer running down the storm drain making him feel like he either needed to take a piss or puke his guts out. Dean couldn't honestly remember the last time he'd been this drunk. When he was seventeen, maybe, and Caleb had set him down in front of a glass of absinthe and he'd knocked it back like a shooter to impress the older hunter.

Twelve years old and Sammy had been giving him bitchface when he eventually regained the ability to process and retain thoughts. _You brought this on yourself, Dean_, the brat had said condescendingly. And then maybe Dean had puked on himself, or the floor, definitely Sam's socks—or at least he'd hoped he had. But there was no evidence of that the next morning—just a bottle of Tylenol and a glass of water beside his bed, and his brother somewhere in the distance telling their father that Dean had the flu, covering for him in bare feet.

Maybe he'd spilled the Tylenol and all the water too, struggling out of the bed to find his brother. He didn't remember. What he remembered was holding Sam to his chest and swearing never to get that pissed out of his mind again. Sam had looked at Dean like he didn't believe him—the same look he gave their father, whenever he made promises they both knew he wouldn't keep—but he'd hugged him back anyway.

Maybe his bladder was too full after all. Dean got the distinct impression that he was going to piss himself if he sat here any longer, seeing ghosts in bottle shards. He struggled to his feet, trying to force his skedaddled mind to remember the way back to the hotel room Cas had plucked out of his ass when he went in for the landing. The hotel room where Sam was probably still splayed out in the bed closest to the door—the bed Dean always plunked his bags on, easier to the get in and out for those late nights, and still between Sam and anything that might try to come in. But now the problem wasn't things that could break into a hotel room. The problem was inside. His brother.

Dean could see a fuzzy white light in the distance that looked like it might be the sign for their hotel. A single car sped past him on the road, the taillights leaving a trail of red that seemed to linger in the air. The hunter continued stumbling forward, reaching out to steady himself against some kind of building with tall dark windows—silent because nothing was open at…Dean squinted at his wrist for a moment before deciding he'd never worn a watch on either arm. He could call Sam, ask him what time it was, but that soft, raspy voice was exactly why he had left.

The hunter staggered heavily as the wall he was using for support disappeared, abandoning him to lurch into the narrow space between the building and a tall line of shrubs. The back of his throat constricted and his stomach churned at the unexpected move, shooting bile straight up to the back of his throat. He couldn't do anything except swallow convulsively over and over and brace his hands against the corner of whatever shit shop had the misfortune of being between him and his hotel.

Hanging his head for a moment seemed to clear the worst of the sick feeling, and Dean decided he would rather puke in the bathroom at the hotel than the hedges of this alley. He'd spent enough fucking time in there to know, after all. Dean leaned his forehead against the cold wall of the building, fumbling with the slippery-ass buttons on his pants and cussing out his useless fingers. Maybe if he at least pissed out some of the battery acid he'd been drinking the hotel would be closer.

Sam had been mostly unconscious, mostly asleep for the last thirty-odd hours while Dean went in and out, retrieved the Impala, paid for their room before the owner called the cops, stacked the nightstand next to the bed with Twinkies and Oreos and a whole barrel of apple juice—offerings he left to get every time he found himself reaching out to take the limp hand that lay across the light blue comforter.

And then Sam woke up. Dean had been in the bathroom at the time, toweling water off his face and trying to think of anything else he could go out and grab. _Dean? _Sam's voice had barely reached him through the mostly closed door, and his fists had closed around the towel so hard he knuckles had gone white. Because Sam awake, Sam making faces, Sam bitching at him was the only thing that ever made him feel better. Somehow his feet stayed frozen on the tiles.

_Dean? Are you here? Dean?_ He could imagine Sam's bleary expression, could imagine him squinting at the piles of cookies and juice and cough syrup and headache medicine and Tums and a dozen other things he probably didn't need. _Dean? _His brother called out one more time before the room returned to silence.

And all Dean could do was slide silently down the bathroom wall until he was sitting on the cold tiles, and wait for Sam to be asleep again so that he could escape. And this time Dean didn't try to pretend he was doing anything but leaving. He'd ended up at a bar—and then another bar, and then a liquor store or a gas station or something. And now he'd washed up in the alley of some building with manicured lawns so perfect they could probably use a little piss. The button on his jeans was ten times as hard to get back through the hole as it had been to get out, and Dean had to lean against the wall and squint down at it to make it stay between his fingers.

He was determined to make it back to the hotel room now though, before the puking and passing out, because he had words for Sam, finally. The words he had been too cowardly to come out of the bathroom and say.

Dean staggered down the darkened walk once more, pushing away from the wall and forcing his feet to carry his weight without dumping him on his ass. At last he could see the rows of doors and the little balconies behind the waist-high wall appearing on his right—much closer than he remembered the fuzzy sign. His sense of distance was shot, though, so he couldn't be sure—and even though it would usually have been no problem to hop over the tiny wall, Dean just scraped his leg slowly over the top until he was straddling the stone, and then pulled his other leg up behind. The stars spun like the end of a top above him as he stood up, his head lolling backward.

Dean considered quitting and just sitting down on the wall, but he was so fucking close—Sam was so fucking close. The hunter pushed himself forward, squinting at the numbers on the line of doors until he found 103. He brought up his hand, tracing the silver numbers nailed into the wood with his finger twice to be sure before feeling around his pockets for his room key. At first he found only receipts for drinks he didn't remember buying, and loose change and crumpled ones shoved into every pocket. The little plastic piece-of-shit keycard finally appeared at the bottom of his jacket pocket. It was bent and it had some kind of deep scuff on it, as though Dean had shoved it into something mechanical. He vaguely remembered some kind of automatic card eater, and wondered what the fuck he'd been trying to do.

Dean kicked the door with the tip of his shoe, but there were no sounds and no lights on the other side. It took a few tries, but he managed to get the bent card into the lock, pulling it in and out and watching as the light buzzed red over and over.

"Sam!" Dean finally called. A headache was blistering in his temples, and the spinning behind his eyes had reached _mechanical bull_ on the disorientation scale. "Sam, please!" he yelled, pressing his cheek against the door. Only dead silence from the other side.

And suddenly Dean didn't give a fuck if this was a hotel room, or if Sam was sleeping—he levered himself back on his heel, lifting his foot and smashing the door inward. The impact jarred all the way up his leg as he hit the lock slightly off his mark, catching the frame instead, but the door splintered inward all the same. The image of the shattered door of the farmhouse slid through his mind, making his heart pump in an ugly way.

"Sam!" Dean called, staggering through the door. There wasn't so much as a drip of water in here, and as the hunter looked around, he realized that the beds were empty—both of them. Panic welled up in his chest and all at once the bile and booze were back in the rear of his throat, his mind spinning like a goddamn Tilt-a-whirl.

There hadn't been any forced entry—no sign of a struggle, no sign that anyone had ever been there. Just the way the rooms looked when they packed up and left. Dean surged forward, spreading his hands across the dark blue bedspread where he brother had been lying. He would have settled for one fucking wrinkle in the comforter, but no—nothing.

Sam was gone. Dean felt wetness on his cheeks, a raw burn in his throat. No, not just gone—Sam had _left_ him. Sam had left him, and he had no idea what to do. His mind was back in the bathroom as he listened to his brother call for him and didn't answer. He had fucking driven Sam to this, he knew that—knew it every time he looked at that bruise on Sam's jaw.

But he hadn't known what the fuck else to do, because Sam didn't understand. He was sobbing now, sliding to his knees on the side of the bed and fisting his hands in the comforter like he could wring its neck.

Sam thought he had everything under control, but he didn't. Because that dark road he was on, Dean had already been to the end of it. It hadn't been that hard to raise his fist, because he had tortured Sam a hundred times already in Hell—a hundred thousand, maybe. It was one of Alastair's favorite games, to pick the ones that looked like his brother, to goad him to make the first cut, and the only thing that had kept Dean was from losing his mind was that the screams were always wrong. The screams were the howling, unending suffering of others, suffering he was learning to make even worse, but Sam was still alive—still all right somewhere.

Except that he hadn't been, and now he was going to end up like those other souls, tortured in Hell, which somehow always screamed with Sam's voice in Dean's dreams. He wrapped his hands around his head, beating his temple against the empty bed. Because it didn't matter if the rest of the world burned, or the fucking angels fell from the sky—all the mattered was him and Sam, and he didn't know how he'd almost lost that before, but it wasn't fucking happening now.

Dean pushed himself roughly off of the bed, staggering to his feet and spreading his arms out as he threw his head back.

"Cas—please, Cas!" he yelled. "I know you fucking hear me, so just…don't let him be gone. Don't let him be gone. Cas!" He shouted the name again, louder this time, spinning to face the rest of the room, and then lurching against the angel who had appeared suddenly behind him. Dean hadn't heard the rustle of wings, but his ears were starting to ring and a layer of fuzz seemed to have grown right behind his eyeballs.

"Dean," the angel said. The hunter watched his name as it formed on the other man's lips. He shrugged himself off of Castiel but kept one hand braced on the tan material of the angel's shoulder, for balance or leverage, he wasn't sure.

"Please, Cas," Dean repeated, shaking his head like he could shake it right off. "Please, you gotta bring him back. He can't be gone, he just can't…" Dean ground his fist against the coat as he spoke.

Castiel frowned darkly, and the hunter watched as his eyes flickered slowly around the room. "Who has left, Dean?" he asked finally.

The hunter choked, his face contorting in a way that made him feel puke-heavy and lightheaded all at once. He shoved Castiel away hard, waving at the space that was too goddamn empty—nothing had ever been so empty as the place Sam had abandoned him without a fucking word.

"Sam!" he shouted disbelievingly at his infuriating angel. "Sam left me. And I can't…he can't…" Dean's head pounded at the volume of his own voice, smashing his train of thought to pieces until all that was left was the desperation. "Just bring him back, Cas," he demanded, feeling the slick of tears on his cheeks again. "You can fucking do that much, can't you?"

Castiel's narrowed eyes fixed on Dean, and his shoulders tensed for a moment as though he were considering something, before he stepped forward.

"Sam had not gone anywhere," the angel said firmly, and there was something in the tone that sounded almost like Sam when he got on Dean's case for drinking too much. Dean's desperate eyes traced the empty room again, confusion swirling around in the alcohol haze.

"But…"

The angel lifted his hand slowly and deliberately toward Dean's temple, meeting the hunter's eyes briefly. "This is not the room where you and Sam have been staying." Then the angel's fingers met Dean's skin, and everything was a cosmic blur.

It was the worst fucking trip Dean had ever taken, and for a second he thought maybe he was stuck inside the girly kaleidoscope Sam had dragged around as a toddler, colors shifting and moving around him in a psychedelic smear. And he would yell at Cas properly for doing that without his permission at some point, but not right now. Because right now he was at the foot of a bed, with a light blue blanket stretched across it, and a huge figure curled to one side with Dean's phone in his hand and a stack of empty apple juice containers next to him on the floor.

"Sam!" Dean rushed forward, peeling the phone out of his brother's fingers and replacing them with his own hand. It took a second for the hazel eyes to blink open and fix on him, and there was some confusion there, maybe some exhaustion still, but Sam was smiling, and it was the best smile Dean could ever remember getting.

"Dean," he said, squeezing his brother's hand in return. And right then, Dean knew they were going to be okay. He would make sure of it.

.x.

From the sidewalk across the street, through walls and windows that were as nothing before his eyes, Castiel watched the Winchesters come back together. It would have been equally simple to hear their voices, but he chose not to, settled for studying their faces as Dean shook his head and gritted his teeth against his tears and Sam swung his legs over the edge of the bed, only trembling a little as he pressed a reassuring hand to his brother's shoulder. Castiel wondered if Dean was apologizing. Even at a distance, he could feel the tension that had surrounded the Winchesters since he was called down beginning to dissipate—something more natural, more familiar, settled in between them, something anchored in Dean's fingers tightening around his brother's hand and the small, fond smile on Sam's face even as he rubbed his eyes. Castiel wondered if this was the rhythm of all human relationships, or just of this one—an endless cycle of conflict and resolution, incited by drink and aggravated by violence. Forgiveness never seemed to last long enough for the bruises to heal.

Dean would be ill soon; Castiel could see it in the pallor of his face, the way he groped for a handhold to pull himself onto the bed, his body listing like a ship at the mercy of a storm. Perhaps Sam could see it, too—already he was pushing to his feet, fetching a trash can, a washcloth, a water bottle he pressed into his brother's hand. For a fragment of a second, an infinitely short span of time, Castiel regretted returning Dean to the correct room, because what Sam needed was rest, not someone else, equally broken, to suffer into his care—then he chastised himself, because matters between the Winchesters were not his concern and he had no way of knowing what Sam needed.

Perhaps Dean did. Perhaps there was a reason Dean found a way to break himself so often when Sam was in need.

Castiel watched through the window and remembered Sam the night before, at war with his delirium, begging him to go to Dean—Dean, manic with self-inflicted madness, demanding that he drag Sam back to the cold room where delusion had led him. There was something out of balance between them, the angel knew, but he would not have known how to fix it, even if it had been his place.

For one more moment, Castiel hesitated, his black shoes uncertain on the pale concrete. Then he turned his back and unbound his wings, tilting his face to the stars. For now, he would leave them to each other's care—but already he knew he would return to check on Sam before too long. Just to be certain.

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This story only has one chapter left to go. Thanks to everyone who's been reading and enjoying it.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.

This story follows "A Change in the Weather," but it's not necessary to read that story first.

Special Note: One challenge of adding a "gap year" between Dean being raised from Hell and most of the events of Season 4 was getting in a few important canon events in a new way. This story surrounds/follows Dean finding out about Sam exorcising demons with his mind while he was in Hell, but since in this 'verse it isn't Castiel but Uriel who tells Dean what Sam was doing with Ruby, we needed a different story to explore that. This story is much darker than the last couple, with equal focus on Sam and Dean and Sam and Castiel.

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Sam leaned against the Impala, resting his arms on the roof over the driver's side door, and considered laying his head down on the slightly warm surface. The car had been parked in the sun for most of the day, and the black paint had managed to soak in a persistent heat, the kind that was highly unpleasant in the summer on the endless roads of Kansas or Oklahoma or anywhere the heat literally rose in waves from the ground, but actually somewhat pleasant in the night air of a Wyoming spring.

Sam was tired, but he kept his head up anyway, his eyes fixed on the bar with the glowing neon sign in the shape of a martini glass, filled with the silhouette of a woman sticking her leg out of the top with an olive on the end of her foot. The place looked like a pretty high level of sleaze even for Dean, and it made Sam doubly glad he had refused his brother's offer to join him for _a night out, Sammy! _Dean had offered a leery grin, waggling his eyebrows up and down. _I'll even let you have our hotel room till morning for whatever you want._

Sam had wanted a shower, and maybe a carton of juice, or possibly just a nap. _Sorry, Dean..._ He had expected the eye roll from his brother as Dean gathered up his keys and jacket; he hadn't expected the disappointment. It was enough to make Sam bite his lip and reconsider, but in the end he hadn't managed to figure out what he was trying to articulate before Dean said _goodnight, Grandma_, and left spinning his keys around a particular finger.

Sam smiled, shaking his head. The neon sign above the dive Dean had texted him the address for—in case he changed his mind—was on the fritz, making the woman's whole head blink on and off, which left her decapitated in the martini glass at intervals. Sam glanced at his watch, noting that it was fast approaching midnight and really hoping his brother was planning an early night. He had gotten a pretty early start, after all.

Sam didn't remember much about the drive from Montana to Wyoming. Apparently he'd been in and out, but mostly out, for the duration—the lingering effects of the blood loss, which Castiel had been unable to replace. That had left Sam to work on replacing his blood the old-fashioned way, by chugging buckets of juice that had them making pit stops at every gas mart and McDonalds they passed, not to mention a few bushes and even a YMCA. Dean complained endlessly, of course, suggesting everything from adult diapers to the empty beer bottle rolling on the floor in the back as a solution, but he never once asked Sam to hold it, so the tall hunter knew his brother was still worried.

Sam would have known that anyway, because after the drunken yelling and apologies and hugs, followed as they always seemed to be by puking, Dean had been acting contrite for the last couple of days—which meant, in his brother's case, that they were staying at motels without any mold growing in the bathrooms, pulling over before seven p.m., and eating at restaurants that had actual folding menus and no short-order cooks. And Sam did appreciate it, if only for the reason that he still felt shaky if he walked too far and lightheaded and tired by evening, no matter what he had been doing—which wasn't really a surprise. The best thing for Sam would probably have been a transfusion, oxygen, and fresh frozen plasma, but that was the kind of treatment that required a hospital, which was not only expensive and dangerous, but also left awkward questions like how a person could be suffering from blood loss with no external injuries.

The Snackwell cookies and rest option, on the other hand, was cheap and easy, and Sam had almost felt like himself again, just a little more fatigued than usual. And mostly he and Dean were okay; he hesitated to push it any further than that, but their relationship seemed to be mending right along with Sam's hypovolemia.

Which was why it had been so hard to turn down Dean's genuine offer to go out together tonight—but Sam still felt woozy going up flights of stairs, and hadn't relished the thought of thinning out what blood he had managed to replace with copious amounts of alcohol and then bleeding out from a shaving nick or a hangnail.

The head of the woman in the cocktail blinked out again, and Sam finally succumbed to the urge to lay his own head against the top of the Impala. The thought of Dean out drinking alone for the third night in a row had started to get to him, flipping through channels in the hotel room, which was crowded with so much furniture the beds were barely twelve inches apart. So Sam had dragged up the text message with the address on it and got the front desk to call him a cab.

He had no intention of going in, but maybe he could at least drive Dean back to the room. That had been his thinking during the taxi ride, stumbling through stilted conversation and trying not to get dizzy from the way the streetlamps and shop lights smeared against the dark glass of the windows. Only it had suddenly seemed so early, when he was finally let out of the cab and stood there in the cooling parking lot with the lights of the city blotting out the stars. It wasn't even midnight. Sam couldn't shake the nagging worry that he was about to be one giant buzzkill just when Dean needed to blow off steam the most.

He wouldn't actually go home with a girl—not while Sam was so far from one hundred percent. His brother was now on high alert with his phone, too, picking up before the first ring had even finished when Sam had called him during an his errand run earlier to remind him to pick up extra water.

So now Sam was stuck—because part of him just wanted to call the cab and go back, but another part of him, a tenacious part he expected was the cause of a lot of his problems, refused to be budged. Dean had done a lot for him in the last few days, and if the increasing volume of his alcohol consumption was anything to go by, he wasn't coping with things nearly as well as he was pretending. The tall hunter shifted his weight, feeling the slightly uncomfortable tightness around his left foot that reminded him he had reason to be worried.

The door to the bar swung open and Sam's head perked up, but only a drunken pair of business men stumbled out, their ties loose and their jackets tucked under their arms as they leaned against each other, weaving toward the other end of the lot. Sam let his head sink down again, and his eyes flickered briefly to the gritty asphalt, wishing he could sit down. As he'd walked the rows, searching for the Impala, he had spotted something on the ground that looked suspiciously like a used condom, though, and Sam had the feeling that in the daylight he would feel like he needed a shower just standing in this lot, so he stayed where he was.

At some point he would call Dean, tell him he'd come to pick him up, make sure he made it home. He hadn't understood all of the apologies and accusations his brother had hurled in rapid succession through drunken tears, but he had gotten the sense that it had all started with Dean too drunk to find his way back.

And that had brought back memories—mostly of the look on Dean's face as a teenager, when he would pick up the phone and just listen with a darkening expression, saying nothing, before locking Sam in his room and leaving with tense shoulders. Because sometimes bartenders had the good sense to confiscate John Winchester's keys, and sometimes he ended up in the drunk tank in small towns, and sometimes he was just sleeping on a park bench somewhere. And he never remembered any of it later.

But that wasn't where he and Dean were headed. A slight ache in Sam's foot sent a jolt through him as he put all his weight on his left side, reminding him with a wince why he was doing this. He just wished he had a spare key to the car. It wouldn't be so bad to wait inside the impala for...what, exactly? Sam wasn't sure anymore—the right time, maybe.

The parking lot was cool, but not cold, and Sam was more than warm enough in his brown coat. There was a faint buzz from the enormous neon sign, but other than that the night was still and quiet, and so the rustle of feathers and the familiar flutter of wings was unmistakable. The martini sign blinked completely off for a moment with a crackle, and then Castiel's back was right in front of Sam, his trench coat flapping as the angel turned around. Sam's head lifted off of the car.

"Cas," he breathed, meeting blue eyes that fixed on him. The angel had a slight frown on his face as he looked Sam up and down critically, and the tall hunter felt a soft smile slipping onto his face. "Checking me out, huh, Cas?" he said quietly. Castiel blinked, not getting the joke.

"Your body is not completely restored yet, Sam," he said. His dark eyes moved away, scanning the empty parking lot and the sign and focusing on the bar so hard Sam wondered if maybe the angel could see Dean right through the walls. Somehow, he didn't want that.

"Cas," Sam repeated, drawing the angel's attention back to him. "You came at the perfect time. Could you get us into the Impala—I mean, without breaking it?" He waved his hands over the locked car, and tried to give Cas a hopeful smile.

He wasn't sure how well he succeeded, judging by the way the frown lines only grew more severe on the angel's face, but Castiel turned to study the car for a moment, and then closed the distance between them in two steps and reached out toward Sam. There was the familiar rush of movement, and then suddenly Sam was cramped, his body pinched in an awkward position. As the white spots cleared from his eyes, he realized that he was crushed partway into the steering wheel, with his legs extended awkwardly into the gas and brake pedal and his neck bent at an bad angle—but technically he was in the Impala.

Sam shook away his disorientation, uncurling until he could sit comfortably, and looking over to Castiel who was now seated stiffly in the passenger seat beside him. Sam couldn't say he really understood all of the angel's expressions yet, but this one seemed gentler than most, and a shiver ran through him at the thought of the last time he had seen the angel—their half-remembered conversation that sounded more like water than words in his head, and the warmth that had overtaken him, and mostly Castiel, kneeling with him, a warm, solid presence—the most solid thing Sam had ever held onto.

Castiel caught him looking, and turned to face him. "Hello, Sam," he said solemnly—the greeting he always seemed to practice now, although sometimes, like in this case, rather belatedly. Sam smiled.

"Hey, Cas," he responded. He already felt better just being able to sit down. "I'm just waiting for Dean." Castiel's brow contorted, and Sam suddenly felt the need to justify, for his brother's sake or his own, he wasn't sure. "He doesn't know I'm here—I came by myself. I'm just…waiting." The repeated word hung clumsily in the air, and Sam shifted, self-conscious under those piercing blue eyes, but after a long moment the angel just turned his stare on the bar again.

"You should be resting, Sam."

Cas's voice was always soft—just one more way he was holding back for their sakes, probably—but somehow it sounded different tonight, more careful. More worried. Sam wondered what an angel would have to be worried about. Without thought, he found his hands had drifted up to rest on the steering wheel; he didn't even have the keys, but the position was almost instinct.

"That's why I'm lucky you showed up," Sam said finally, relaxing his weight back against the wide seat. "Now I _can_ rest—in the Impala. Thanks." He shot the angel another smile, and while the strange look Sam couldn't quite place remained on the other man's face, his frown lines finally smoothed out.

Staring back into those tireless eyes, so deep and focused they always made Sam feel like someone was looking straight into his soul and examining it one inch at a time, Sam suddenly couldn't remember whether he'd ever thanked Castiel, in the midst of his haze. He remembered the blood, the apologies, the feeling of his body being lifted into arms that didn't even bend under his weight, but he couldn't remember _thank you_. Sam's hands tightened around the wheel, tracing the soft pebbles of the worn leather with his fingertips.

"You know, you saved me, Cas." Sam left his hands locked around the wheel, because he wasn't sure exactly what would happen if he let go. All the same his head tipped toward Castiel, something in him craving that warmth and steadiness again. In the long silence he watched a tiny crease blossom on Cas's brow.

"You were not in any particular danger outside of the vehicle," the angel said slowly. Sam exhaled into a sigh that was somehow exasperated and familiar, and rolled his head back against the seat until he was staring up at the roof of the car, the threads of the black upholstery glinting in the night lights.

"I meant when you saved my life," Sam amended, a little smile tugging at his lips. "No one else could have done what you did for me. I just…thank you." He shifted just a little, just far enough to catch Castiel out of the corner of his eye, but the movement scared his left shoe against the brake pedal and Sam couldn't fight a small wince as pain echoed up from the sole of his foot. Castiel's hand was suddenly on his arm, the grip surprisingly tight.

"Sam?" the angel asked. Sam looked back over at him, forcing another quick smile.

"It's nothing, Cas," he said. "Just a little cut I got tripping over something. Clumsy, right?" Sam let his hands fall away from the steering wheel, leaning forward awkwardly in the small space to pull off his shoe.

Nothing he'd said to the angel had been a lie. And really, as soon as the side of his shoe wasn't rubbing against the bandage, Sam knew he would forget the injury was even there.

He could feel Castiel's eyes on his white sock as he pushed the brown shoe away with his other foot. There was a slight lump under the material, where a thick bandage covered a thin cut that ran up Sam's foot from the soft center of his sole to the hard bone of his ankle. It wasn't deep at all, and it had stopped bleeding before Sam had even limped into the bathroom the night before.

It was so dark in the Impala that Sam wasn't even sure what Castiel could possibly be looking at so intently. But something in the angel's gaze as his eyes met Sam's once more said he knew something. Or just suspected something, maybe. Sam sighed and pushed a hand back through his hair.

"It was just an accident, Cas," he said, feeling suddenly weary again.

Dean had been out late somewhere the night before; Sam had sacked out early, collapsing on his double bed with the drone of the TV still buzzing in the background. He'd been so deeply asleep he hadn't heard his brother come back in the early hours of the morning, apparently tottering and juggling a beer and a small bottle of complimentary something from the hotel room of wherever he'd been. Then Dean must have passed out.

Sam only knew Dean had been carrying these things because when he had stumbled out of bed sweating and shaking, struggling to turn off the too-loud infomercials, something had bitten into his foot, surprising a gasp out of him in the complete darkness and sending him lurching toward the bathroom to guzzle down water from the sink. He'd honestly thought it was the nightmare at first, and his sleep-addled brain had been utterly thrown by the stinging line of red his foot left against the white tiles.

It was a shallow but painful cut, from a piece of glass, a shard from the bottles that had broken against each other or the TV stand or something else entirely. After bandaging his foot, the tall hunter had flicked the light on to reveal the scene: the glass, the stain of alcohol on the reddish-brown carpet, his brother facedown on top of the duvet, with one muddy shoe hanging over the side. Sam had cleaned up—the room and his brother. Dean hadn't remembered anything in the morning, and Sam couldn't seem to find a way to tell him.

Such a long silence had hung in the car that Sam was sure if it had been anyone but Castiel, the other person would have left by now—given up on him. Cas was still just sitting there, his soft eyes fixed on Sam.

"I can return you to your hotel," he said, when Sam looked up at him again. The angel lifted his hand and let his fingers hover beside Sam's temples, but he made no attempt to complete the motion, obviously waiting for an answer.

Sam looked away, staring at the headless woman in the cocktail glass, waiting for her head to blink back on. His hands curled around the wheel again, and he imagined for just a moment what it would be like to drive away like this, just him and Cas. His heart leapt a little strangely in his chest. In the distance, the door to the bar banged open again. A whole stream of younger men spilled out in a dissonance of shouts and laughter, but none of them were Dean.

"Maybe just stay with me instead?" Sam found himself asking as he turned to Castiel once more, something magnetic and inevitable in the way their eyes came back together. "Just for a while?"

Castiel tipped his head slightly, that little motion that always made Sam want to smile because it was half confused and half assent and most of all because it meant Castiel was looking right at him, and there was something in him that sort of wanted that. Maybe more than he should. "I will not leave you, Sam," the angel said, and Sam ducked his head, remembering those words all too clearly from another time and place, disoriented and shaky in snarled sheets—the words that had made him feel, for a second, like maybe angels were watching over him, too. He tightened his hands around the steering wheel.

"Yeah. I mean…thanks, Cas."

Cas gave a slow nod, his hand settling in the space between them on the seat, and Sam surrendered his weight to the familiar seat, feeling a little lighter, a little safer, and maybe a little happier. He kept his hands on the rim even as he felt his eyelids getting heavy, the world fuzzier every time he blinked, and the feeling made him smile—because Sam had a feeling he would fall asleep like this, but he thought maybe he would have a different kind of dream tonight, one without shadows or ringing phones or blood. Maybe a sunny road with an angel in the passenger seat.

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Thanks, everyone, for reading this story. This chapter marks the end of "Blood and Broken Glass"; the next story in the Other Guardian 'verse, "What the Heart Wants," will appear soon. Thanks for all the reviews and encouragement.


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